“My college sweetheart vanished over Vietnam 55 years ago. Every year, I traveled to a memorial carrying one white rose and our old photograph. But last Tuesday, a stranger was waiting at the airport—holding the exact same picture.”

outside our college library.

A copy of the same photograph I carried in my purse.

I stopped walking.

The man looked up from the picture. He was in his thirties, with dark eyes and a crooked smile that made my stomach tighten.

“Ms. Eleanor?”

“Where did you get that?” I asked.

He glanced at the photograph.

“My grandfather gave it to me.”

“Who is your grandfather?”

“His name is Thomas.”

He gave me the surname, too. It was the one I had once expected to

take.

I gripped the handle